Climate Diplomacy - Foreign Policy Responses to Climate Change

Climate change is one of the most important challenges that humanity collectively faces in the 21st century. The repercussions for foreign policy agendas are substantial: increasing water scarcity, more flooding, and extreme weather events threaten millions of livelihoods across the world, sometimes forcing people to migrate. Many developing countries and fragile states that lack stable institutions are likely to be hit hardest.

A new profile of climate diplomacy is evolving to make use of a full range of policies, including development cooperation, conflict prevention efforts, and humanitarian assistance, in addition to more traditional measures of climate change adaptation and mitigation. These new approaches for foreign policy go beyond the traditional realms of climate policy.

adelphi and its partners formed an alliance with the German Federal Foreign Office and have played a central role in the process of analysing the international debates on climate diplomacy and security, while developing key narratives, contributing to awareness raising and capacity building efforts, moving from risk analysis to timely preventive action, and supporting international and regional dialogues on this topic around the world.

In this booklet, we illustrate the rationale and results of the German Federal Foreign Office´s and adelphi’s engagement in climate diplomacy activities.

Highlights include:

• Climate diplomacy narratives – from cities to growth, water and global food security
• Climate risks, diplomacy and resilience
• Climate change and security at the UN level
• G7 action on climate and fragility risks
• Communicating climate diplomacy: interactive online resources and touring exhibition
• The Climate Fund projects by the German Federal Foreign Office